Cave Story: Years Gone By
by H. S. Leary
Summary: Many months after the Doctor's defeat, Balrog, Quote and Curly Brace are living together on an idyllic mountainside. They've sloughed off their former identities as warriors and are now living harmonious, tranquil, contented lives. But when Quote comes to terms with this, he discovers thoughts and feelings that he had never known he could feel before. Rated for good lovin'.
1. Chapter 1: A Year Later

Just another story- a story within the big, endless story of life. A story about a Cave Story.

It had been a year since the Demon Crown incident on the Floating Island. The island had, for the most part, repaired itself to the how it was before the Doctor's coming. The android Quote and Curly Brace, the Sakamoto family, and others made a group effort to thwart him, with some casualties in the process; but now, Mimiga society was thriving again, and the formerly malicious, but now benign, witch called Misery was living there free of servitude. Quote, Curly Brace, and the giant sentient toaster Balrog left to live a tranquil life in a mountainside cabin. It is here that we join our heroes, in the aftermath of their adventures.

It was Autumn in the mountains. Curly Brace and Quote lay side by side on the purple heather, gazing into the sky. The sky was slightly overcast, and Curly was naming the clouds that floated by.

"Hey, that cloud's a huge duck, and that one's a dinosaur, and that-" A conspicuously large Maple leaf fell. Curly sat up quickly. "Hey! Quote! Look!" She pointed at the leaf. She took out her machine gun and unleashed it at the leaf, turning it to dust in midair. She turned towards Quote with her usual over-enthusiastic grin. "Wasn't that _Cool?!_" she said.

Quote half-smiled, half-smirked as he wondered, not for the first time, why she still carried that thing everywhere. And why he himself still carried his Spur everywhere, as he raised it to the treetops and charged it. When he saw another leaf, he let loose a beam of white energy with a high pitched noise. The leaf was vaporized and so was the branch it fell from.

Curly was awed for a second, but then looked down at him with what she hoped would be a scowl, but she ended up giggling instead.

The mood was broken by a booming, friendly "HUZZAH!"

Balrog fell from above and landed between them, knocking them over. The lovable oaf, he still hasn't stopped doing that. "I fixed the fence! And the roof! And planted a flower!" he said with a smile, a smile like a retriever dog anxiously awaiting approval. Balrog didn't seem to mind being the homemaker. It was probably due to all those years of slavery to the Demon Crown. Poor guy…

Curly said to them both, "Great! Let's go home, it's about to get dark." Quote, humble and taciturn as ever, nodded. They walked back, while Curly paused, looking at the twilight sky and the setting sun. Quote paused too. He was looking at Curly. Perhaps with longing. Perhaps not.


	2. Chapter 2: A Premonition

That night, Quote dreamed.

_The water kept rising. Quote and Curly were jumping around the rotted platforms that held the remains of what were their comrades, years before. The organic engine before them, the Core of the island, bombarded the two with some sort of energy blasts. The robots kept dodging, with Quote shooting precisely at each chance, while his new ally Curly Brace unloaded her machine gun at the beast. Damn, does that thing _ever _run out of ammo?... Soon enough, the final blow was struck, and the monster's lights went out and it looked like it was about to explode. The room started shaking. "We did it?!" Curly exclaimed. _

_ This scene was familiar to Quote. This was the first battle that he and Curly fought side by side in. The witch Misery teleported into the room. She was irked."Pulled it off, I see!" She said with disdain._

_ "You! You're that witch who tossed me down here! Those children __had__better__be…__"_

_ But Quote wasn't paying attention anymore. He had seen this scene before. Misery and Curly's argument was just background noise as the dream started to deviate from fact. In his dream, he suddenly realized something. It was something that he did not realize at the time of the battle._

_He realized that Curly Brace was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen._

_The witch and Curly were arguing vehemently. The Doctor appeared, something happened, teleportation, blah blah blah… none of it mattered to Quote. He was too focused on Curly. Her magenta jeans were ripped by the blasts. Her sleeveless shirt, too. Her exposed legs were unexpectedly curvaceous, and her scorched shirt revealed cleavage far more impressive than any android should have. God, the manufacturers had done a fine job._

_Her body was artificial, as was Quote's, and their emotions were none more than the result of skilled programming. Still, Quote did not doubt for a minute that he was seeing her and knew love. Her eyes were no less beautiful for being just camera lenses._

_As she argued with Misery, waving her gun around, the chamber's water rose. Curly turned, and-_

-He awoke.

Curly Brace was standing over him, poking him in the forehead. "Hey. You were rolling around and muttering like crazy in your sleep. What the heck were you dreaming about?" He felt awkward and embarrassed, as if he'd been caught doing something inappropriate. But she didn't detect anything and just continued to poke him.

He sat up, rubbed his eyes and mumbled, "Uh… electric sheep?"

Again, it was Balrog who broke the tension. He crashed in on them from above with a "Huzzah!" It never made sense to either of the robots how he managed to crash in from above when there was clearly no egress for him to come through, or how he never left any huge holes in the ceiling, but he was adamant about never revealing these secrets.

"Hey, Balrog," Quote said.

"So, I'm going on a visit to the island today. Going to visit Misery, see how everything's going over there. Want to come?"

"…not really," Quote replied. He didn't like to go back to a place with those kinds of memories.

Curly looked indecisive, but soon said, "I wouldn't want to leave Quote all alone in this ol' place. I'll stay too!"

"Suit yourself. Bye!" Balrog flew up and away, again not leaving a hole in the ceiling through some miraculous quirk.

Curly chuckled, and turned around towards Quote. In that instant, Quote realized that his dream was right. She _was_ the most beautiful thing in the world. She was looking at him with a face expecting nothing; seeking no approval or disapproval, no defenses, no preconceptions. An honest, true smile of an honest, true friend. They'd been through Hell together, quite literally, and their bond was strong as it could be. The heart-inscribed chunk of iron mounted on the wall was an apt symbol.

"What should we do today?" Curly asked Quote. He snapped out of his reverie. Curly, answering her own question, said "Hey, here's an idea- let's go hiking! We haven't explored this mountain very much, even though we've been here so long. Whaddya say? A nice little hike?"


	3. Chapter 3: Hearts of Metal

The pair set out a bit later, Curly with her machine gun and Quote with the Spur. Critters and other little beasties could be lurking in these wilds too. They bushwhacked through vast swaths of bramble and shrubbery, creating new trails for themselves as they traversed the woods. The sounds of the woodland wildlife were everywhere. The trees were going bare, soon to be naked in the coming months, the foliage replaced by a cold winter sky.

They went deep, deep into the forest. Primeval sylvan beauty surrounded them, untainted by any human hand. A place with no room for those like the Doctor. Exactly the kind of area that the three wanted to spend their rest of the days after the Demon Crown debacle.

Quote and Curly eventually realized that they were lost. They didn't know these woods at all. They could not even tell where all their trails were. The day turned to dusk as they wandered around in futility.

"I guess we're spending the night out here?" Curly said with an air of defeat. Quote nodded in agreement. "Eh. I can take that. Maybe Balrog will fly over and find us in the morning." Quote said. A night completely alone and isolated with the one who he just discovered he has truly come to love. _This will be interesting,_ he thought.

They searched a bit more and found a clearing on a slope, almost completely clear of bushes and brambles. A nice grassy place. They decided that it would be their bedroom for the night.

As they lay next to each other in the clearing, they were silent. Curly was gazing at the stars, probably thinking of ways to shoot them. Quote, though, was paralyzed with anxiety. He and Curly were close, so very close, these feelings may have been inevitable. He had heard Sue talk about things like this in movies when visiting the Sakamotos, but he had no idea that it could feel anything like this. Still, he had no idea how to get his feelings out, or how she would react. He was feeling nervous, defensive and, above all, scared of his own emotions.

After many moments of trepidation, he said, "Do you ever think we're clinging to the past too much?"

Curly sat up. "…huh?"

"I mean, we're soldiers, really," Quote continued to expound. "We're hardwired to have those skills to fight and even kill. But we finished fighting a year ago. We've been through a lot of fighting together, Curly, and these past months have told me that there is definitely more."

"Oh, yeah," she replied. "Remember Ballos? Running through the Sacred Ground together, gunning down those angel-guys, all flying, all those spikes and stuff…. It was intense. And the giant stonehead-thing… we made one hell of a team, didn't we?"

Quote chuckled. "Yeah. We sure did… and I don't regret a single minute." Curly agreed.

There was another long pause. Quote couldn't contain it any more. "Remember when we first fought the Core?" he blurted out.

"Yeah. We were sooo badass!" Curly said, lighthearted as ever.

"And after that. I almost drowned. But you gave me your air tank, and saved me, but you would have died if I hadn't found that shack in the waterway. You remember?" She opened her mouth to respond, but Quote turned to her, making eye contact, and interjected, "Why? Why did you save me, when you knew it could kill you?"

Her look suddenly changed. Her usual cheer had been replaced by embarrassment. She said nothing and looked away, staring at the ground. This matter obviously made her feel a bit awkward. Another pause.

Quote sat up and moved his hand over onto Curly's leg. She stared at it for a moment, then uttered the quietest giggle.

"We're androids that were built to kill and destroy. But we don't have to do that anymore." He said.

"Welllll… yeah, we haven't killed a soldier or anything in a while… we've, like, got beyond that." Quote's hand moved further up her thigh. "So, what's your whole point?" She said, acting like nothing was the matter, even though she knew that something quite serious was about to happen. "Curly…" Quote said, looking down. He didn't know what he was doing. He was so scared. More scared than the Doctor or Ballos had ever frightened him. If he could sweat, he would. She put her hand over his.

"Hm? Yeah? What's up?" she inquired. "…Quote?"

Suddenly, Quote fully embraced Curly and they had their first kiss. Curly was so confused- what the heck is this guy _doing?..._ but, she knew that it made her feel… inexplicably…. _Pleasant_? She started kissing back. If this was some sort of glitch, she certainly didn't mind. Quote started to slowly, subtly, slip his hand under Curly's shirt. Curly moved even closer in. This upset Quote's balance and they both started to fall. They were forced apart, and they started to tumble inelegantly down the slope. They rolled down until they gracelessly landed in some brambles.

Quote was practically in shock. He had completely screwed this up. This can't be happening. _What will happen to us now?_ He looked over at Curly with an apologetic, humiliated face.

Curly's face was anything but. Through her messied, now-tangled hair over her face, she was smiling at him. A subtle smile, not her typical enthused grin. Curly let out the tiniest giggle, momentarily looking down, avoiding eye contact. But she looked up again, and Quote saw in her eyes acceptance. She got the message now. This was meant to be. This was love. They had been through so much together- their friendship had been forged in the fires of war and emerged pure gold. Now, here, away from fighting, away from everything, away from their identities as soldier machines, it was time for them to choose their own path. Their lovestruck gazes told this to each other, and they started to laugh. Two little robots, finally finding themselves in each other, finding their humanity in each other's precisely programmed hearts, laughing in the moonlight.

They got out of the bushes and lay on the ground aside each other. Curly, this time, violently embraced Quote and kissed him, the force of her pure passion seeming infinite to Quote. He embraced her and returned it. As he started to remove her shirt, the Autumn night, for just a split second, felt like springtime.


	4. Chapter 4: What Were Those Kids DOING?

The next morning, just after sunrise, Balrog finally found them. As he flew over the clearing, he saw Curly and Quote asleep, on the ground, Quote holding Curly and Curly holding him. Balrog swooped in, and landed lightly next to them. He decided to skip the usual Huzzah. He retrieved their guns, which were left on the opposite edge of the clearing. Delicately picking up the couple, he carried them back to the cabin by air. He wasn't sure what all of this meant, but he felt that he shouldn't question it.

As he placed them in one of their beds, he looked down at them, all puzzled. _…what were they doing?_ He thought as he noticed that they were not completely clothed. He shrugged it off, and went outside to admire the view.


End file.
